Ouahigouya | Where I was born 👶
In 2015, I had the chance to go to Ghana to visit my family. They had just moved a year ago from Senegal because of my father’s job. My parents and sisters were all excited, and so was I. First, I was excited to finally see them after 2 years 🥰. Then, I was also excited to visit this country that I kept hearing about for years.
When I got to Accra, my parents decided to go travel to the surrounding countries (i.e Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso). Well, I was born in Burkina but never went back there ever again after I had left when I was 1 year old. By the way, we don’t fly, we usually drive to places in Africa as a family when we do trips. So imagine almost 2 days on the road to get to your destination. But the best part about it was; the food we were experiencing, and the beauty we were seeing of Africa.
Well, we got to Burkina Faso, to the small village where my parents were residing at the time. Let me tell you, my mother had a lot of stories about how she was pregnant and couldn’t not speak a word of French, or the dialect: Morè. The one story that troubled me and made me proud of her was how I was born.
When people think of villages in Africa, it is huts and dirt roads. And that is true; some villages are like that. But the one I was in, was a bit modern 😋 . The hospital was rundown though. On April 20, my mom was trying to deliver me. I say trying, because I was not corporating at all. She was in labor for almost 3 hours. She even screamed to the doctor(Ernest Dao) to "Couper” which means Cut in French. Yes that was the only word she knew at the time. The nice doctor instructed the nurses to put my mother in a room with a bathroom, but the door was broken.
After she delivered me, she had to stay in an hospital with no current, a broken door and no actual bed for her to sleep in. She had to take a chair to block the entrance to her room. Not even that, the corridor was full of people sleeping on the floor. She was so afraid I would get kidnapped. At the time, light-skin kids were used as sacrifices. She was so scared that she barely slept 😴 that night, and the night after that. It was approximately 42C / 110F 🥵 . Everything was hot all day, and still hot at night. I do not even know how she gave birth to me under those conditions.
I have a big respect to my mother, and what she has been through. The beauty of what a mother will do or go through for a child is amazing.
How many people nowadays would give birth in those harsh conditions 🤔 ?
